THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release August 6, 1994
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT "MICHIGAN SALUTES THE PRESIDENT" RECEPTION
Westin Hotel
Detroit, Michigan
6:08 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I'm glad to be
back in Michigan, and glad to be back in Detroit. (Applause.)
I'm glad to be on this stage with all these wonderful
Democrats, and I thank them for the work they have done for your
state and for your country.
I also would like to say a special word of thanks to all
the people of Michigan who have been so kind to me and to Hillary and
to our administration, for the victory we won here in the primary in
1992 and in the general election; and since then, for all the work
that has been done -- including the wonderful host we had in Detroit,
in Mayor Archer, when we had the jobs conference here a few months
ago. I thank you for that. (Applause.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I ran for this job because I
wanted to change this country. I was worried about the direction in
which we were going. I thought the economy was going down, the
deficit was going up, the country was coming apart, we were in danger
of losing the American Dream and our government wasn't working for
ordinary people. I wanted to change all that. And after a year and
a half, I can tell you that the change is well underway. (Applause.)
A lot of people don't like it, and they've fought it
every step of the way. When I try to unite people in Washington,
there are always there people trying to divide us. When I try to
talk in ordinary terms to ordinary people, there are always people
there throwing around political hot air and divisive rhetoric. But I
can tell you that we are moving forward. (Applause.)
Since this administration took office, we have
implemented a national economic strategy. We have launched a full-
scale assault on crime. We have made a sweeping proposal on welfare
reform. We have got bills to the floor of both houses of Congress
for the first time in the history of the United States to provide
affordable health care to all Americans. (Applause.)
And I want to point out, when I came to Michigan in
1992, people told me they wanted something done about this economy.
When I offered our national economic plan to the Congress, I was told
in a meeting by the congressional leaders of the other party that
there would be no votes from the other party for the budget, no votes
for the economic plan; that they would not help us to reverse 12
years of exploding deficits, declining investment and a declining
economy. And so, by the narrowest of margins, we passed that
economic plan. And they said the sky would fall, the economy would
collapse, the deficit would go up, jobs would be lost, the end of the
world had come. Chicken Little -- (laughter) -- was on the floor of
the Senate and the House with an elephant pin on. (Laughter and
applause.)
What happened? We produced for the American people $255
billion in spending cuts, tax cuts for 15 million working families --
including 392,000 working families in the state of Michigan .
(Applause.) We did ask 1.2 percent of the wealthiest people in this
country to pay more so we could pay the deficit down, including
41,000 families in Michigan -- one-tenth the number who got a tax
cut. We made 90 percent of the small businesses in this state and
this nation eligible for tax reductions if they invested more to grow
this economy. We made 20 million Americans immediately eligible for
lower interest rates and better repayment terms on their college
loans. (Applause.) And what was the result?
We're shrinking the federal government to its smallest
point since Kennedy was President. We've got three years of deficit
reduction in a row coming for the first time since Truman was
President. (Applause.) We have 4.1 million new jobs -- more jobs in
a year and a half in Michigan than in the previous four years. We
have a big drop in the unemployment rate; the largest number of new
businesses formed in any single year since the World War II. I plead
guilty -- we did it. (Applause.)
I just want you to remember this -- in this United
States Senate race, if it had not been for Congressman Carr, the plan
would have gone down. We passed it by one vote. His opponent is
against what we did. He is still proud of what we did. If you like
where the economy is going, elect Bob Carr to the United States
Senate. (Applause.)
Now, let me say, we're fighting for some other things.
We're going to try to pass a crime bill next week. We have to get it
to a vote first. The crime bill has some controversial provisions.
And a lot of Americans and some members of Congress, in good
conscience, don't agree with them. But it will put 100,000 police on
the street. It will give the police a better chance to compete,
because it eliminates assault weapons while protecting over 650 other
hunting and sporting weapons from being fooled with, which I know is
important. (Applause.)
It says minors can't own or possess handguns unless
they're under the supervision of an adult, which I think is very
important. It provides funds for safe streets, it provides tougher
penalties for repeat offenders, money for the states to build
prisons, but money for prevention programs to give our children
something to say yes to as well as something to say no to.
(Applause.) And we need to pass it because the security of our
families and our communities and our workplaces and our schools
demand it.
You know, I met a woman from Michigan out at the
airport. She came to see me with her two children. Her husband was
murdered in his workplace last year. He was taken to the hospital
and died. And after he died, she got a $24,000 bill from the
emergency room. And because her husband was a small businessperson
who couldn't afford to buy insurance, they didn't have any health
insurance. So there she was, a widow with two little kids and a
$24,000 bill.
In 1943, Congressman Dingell's father introduced the
first bill to provide affordable health care to all Americans. In
1945, '47 and '49, Harry Truman tried to do it. And now, here we are
in 1994. We're the only country in the world with an advanced
economy that doesn't provide health care to everybody.
You've got the automobile industry in Michigan losing
jobs and market share because they got $1,000 in every car in health
care, and they're paying for the cost of people who won't even pay
their own way.
There are 5 million working people in America, almost
all of them working people and their children who had health
insurance five years ago who don't have it today; we're going in
reverse. We have a clear example in the State of Hawaii where, for
20 years, the employers and employees have all had to buy health
insurance, where small businesses have premiums that are 30 percent
below the national average. People are healthier, they're doing
better, and the small business community is doing better. And we are
determined to see that we do not walk away from this.
Let me tell you -- when we started this health care
debate, there were two dozen senators from the other party on a bill
that would provide health care to all Americans. Today, there are
zero there. Every time we have moved to them, they have run the
other way. It is time to stop playing politics with the health care
of the people of the United States of America. (Applause.)
Now, I knew we had to make some changes in our plan, and
we did. We made it less bureaucratic, more voluntary, gave bigger
breaks to small business, and we phase it in over a longer period of
time. That's what the bills now before Congress do. But the issue
is this: Are we going to keep spending more than everybody else and
getting less for it, or are we going to continue to let more and more
money go to insurance companies and bureaucracies instead of to keep
people healthy, or are we going to run the risk of imperiling this
fabulous recovery in the auto industry and this recovery in the
economy, or are we going to keep punishing the small businesspeople
who do provide health insurance, or are we going to do what's right
for the American people? That is the issue. It should not be a
partisan political issue in this election year. We ought to forget
about the election and remember the people who elected us in the
first place and take care of their needs. (Applause.)
And let me make one final remark to you about my friend,
your nominee for governor. (Applause.) I used to be -- for 12 years
I had the honor of being the governor of my state. It was an
incredible experience. And I learned a few things about doing it.
And I'll tell you -- if you want to succeed over the long run, you
have to recognize, number one: a lot of these problems cannot be
solved in Washington. I can put in place good economic policies,
good health care policies, good education policies, good anti-crime
policies, but still, in the state houses and in the city halls, the
shape of the future will be determined by the quality of the people
who are elected. (Applause.) The President cannot do it, the
Congress cannot do it. It matters.
The second thing I want to tell you is, governors
understand that partisan politics doesn't have much to do with
whether kids get educated, job get created, streets are safer if
you're doing your job right. You need someone who can unify people,
someone who believes that we don't have a person to waste, that we
cannot afford to be divided. Someone who will tell you hard truths,
but tell you hard truths in a way that will bring us together, not
tear us apart. And you also need someone with an eye on the future.
This man I know well. He was the first member of your delegation to
endorse my candidacy. I hope that doesn't hurt him here this year.
(Applause.)
And I can tell you, he will be a governor you can be
proud of, he will unite the people of this state, not divide them,
and he will always be thinking about the future. We are living in a
time when the average person will change jobs seven times in a
lifetime. We cannot afford people to ever, ever, ever forget about
the fact that politics can never be about what works in the moment.
We have to be thinking about tomorrow. So I say to you, I want you
to elect him governor, I want you to elect Bob Carr senator. I want
you to return these members of the House delegation without whom this
economic recovery would not be underway. Every one of them will be
attacked by their Republican opponents as being the same old tax-and-
spend, blah, blah, blah, blah. (Laughter.)
The truth is, the crowd that was in there before in all
the Reagan years and the Bush years, they cut taxes on the rich,
raised taxes on the middle class exploded the deficit, and the
economy went downhill, and ignored things like, what was happening to
the auto industry.
We have an economic strategy. It includes fair
taxation, but we're bringing the deficit down, investing in
education and training, building the economy, and looking toward the
future. I think that's what the American people want us to do. If
they know what the record is, these people will all be returned.
You make sure they know.
Thank you, and God bless you. (Applause.)
END6:21 P.M. EDT